It’s almost October! The month of fallen leaves, bizarre temperatures, and most importantly, Halloween. It’s the one time of year where all things Horror are front and center. From costumes to candy to Tales from the Crypt marathons, October is a wonderful celebration of the macabre. We all love to watch horror flicks as we move closer to All Hallows Eve and I’m constantly trying to find time to cram all the classics in. You know how people have a list of movies they have to watch every Christmas? I have that list for Halloween and I hope that some of you do too. But here’s the thing; we’ve all seen Halloween, The Exorcist, The Shining, Poltergeist, and Scream enough times. Don’t you want to watch something different this year? With that in mind, here are ten frequently forgotten horror flicks that deserve a place in the Halloween roster. Some are scary, some are gross, some are fun, but all are worth your time. Now, let’s turn down the lights, lock the doors, and embrace the darkness.
10.
John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness
First time I saw this movie, I didn’t care for it much. It had good moments for sure but they didn’t add up to a greater whole. The strange thing though was that this flick stayed with me. It followed me home, haunted me, and left a lasting impression on my mind. I’ve never been able to get it its final image out of my head. I watched it again recently and completely changed my mind. It’s still got some problems (pacing issues, weak acting) but is an undeniably original film with bold ideas, a hell of a creepy score, tense moments, and an ending that is flat out terrifying. Gives me chills just to think about it. The story involves a group of graduate students who are asked to participate in a bizarre study. An old priest (Donald Pleasance classing up the joint) has discovered a mysterious cylinder in a hidden tomb in an old church. The cylinder is filled with an oozing green liquid and the priest suspects that this liquid is, quite simply, Pure Evil. The students and their professor have other ideas and the way the movie presents the scientific and religious arguments is clever and well-written. All hell eventually breaks loose (literally and figuratively) as the Evil begins to possess people in order to bring forth The Devil himself, and unleash Armageddon. Old Scratch doesn’t quite make an appearance in the traditional sense because Carpenter is wise enough to leave some things to the imagination. He also throws everything at the wall to see what sticks, adding in messages from the future, mirrors that act as doorways to other worlds, and classic zombie horror. It’s his most ambitious film and while it doesn’t all work, it’s a blast watching him shoot for the moon. What does work is the way the movie builds and builds up to that haunting last shot. It’s set up so well that it feels equal parts inevitable and horrifying.
Availability: Blu Ray, DVD, available to rent on Amazon Instant.
9.
From Beyond
Most horror fans are well acquainted with Stuart Gordon’s masterpiece Re-animator. Fewer are aware of his follow up, From Beyond and that’s a shame. While it’s not as good as Re-animator, it’s still an utterly insane ride filled with fantastic practical effects, dark humor, tongue in cheek gross out scenes, and appropriately nutty performances. The movie is based loosely on an H.P. Lovecraft story about a mad scientist (is there any other kind in a horror flick?) who believes that our pituitary glands could provide access to other dimensions if only we were able to harness their power. He invents a machine to enhance the gland (it actually grows out of his head like an antenna) and soon discovers that the other dimension is full of slimy monsters that feast on humans. He loses his head quite quickly and his assistant (Jeffrey Combs) is blamed for the murder. A psychiatrist (Barbara Crampton) is somehow magically able to convince the authorities to admit the assistant into her care and she proposes a journey back to the scientist’s lab to see what really happened. It doesn’t take long for them to be using the machine themselves and they discover that in addition to opening doors to slime dimensions, it also makes them really horny. This leads to a series of hilarious scenes before they open the gates too wide and giant monsters are running wild everywhere. It’s as crazy and goofy as it sounds. Everything is handled with a great sense of fun, the effects are as silly as they are disgusting, the performances just the right amount of over the top, and, at a brisk 80 minutes, it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. This is a great flick to watch with a large group of drunken friends. Though if you haven’t seen Re-animator, get on that first.
Availability: Blu Ray, DVD, available to rent on Amazon Instant.
8.
Lady in White
If you’re like me and love the colors of the Fall, particularly in the month of October, you need to check out Lady in White as soon as possible. It captures the the feeling of that season in suburban America perfectly. It stars a very young Lukas Haas as a picked on boy who is locked in the school closet by a bunch of bullies on Halloween night. Alone and terrified, he has a vision of a young girl being attacked and then feels hands close around his throat before passing out. Once recovered, he and his older brother set out to uncover the mystery and find that they’re on the trail of a serial killer who may or may not be connected to the weird Lady in White who lives alone on the hill. The story itself is somewhat by the numbers (if you can’t figure out who the killer is, you’ve never seen a movie) but it’s the atmosphere that makes this worth watching. It also uses childhood fears to good effect and never feels exploitive. After all, who wasn’t terrified of being locked in school at night?
Availability: DVD, Netflix DVD.
7.
The Legend of Hell House
Something I consistently rant and rave about is the overabundance of PG-13 horror movies. I say they’re not scary, they’re dumbed down, and they’re nothing more than cynical cash-ins. I’m usually right but flicks like The Legend of Hell House (which is actually rated PG) prove that you can make one hell of a scary movie without gore or special effects. You just need a strong atmosphere, solid characters, and a director who knows who to build a mounting sense of dread. The Legend of Hell House starts with a physicist being hired by an eccentric millonaire to investigate what he refers to as ‘the Mt. Everest of haunted houses’. The physicist is accompanied by his wife, a young psychic, and the only survivor of the last investigation of the house. Naturally, once they arrive strange things begin to happen. The survivor tells terrifying stories of the houses’ gruesome history, the psychic believes that a spirit is begging her for help, and the physicist insists it’s nothing more than psychic energy and begins to build a machine that will ‘clear’ the house. This is a perfect example of a ‘slow build’ movie. The director lets the tension mount and mount until we’re so freaked out we can barely breathe. And it’s another horror movie that leaves just about everything to the imagination which makes it all the more frightening. Also, great use of fog.
Availability: Blu Ray, DVD, Amazon Prime, Netflix Streaming.
6.
The Changeling
The Changeling is another great haunted house movie that doesn’t rely on gore or special effects. It stars George C. Scott as a widower who moves to an old Victorian house and is haunted by the ghost of a young boy. He’s frightened at first but quickly makes it his mission to find out what the boy is after. He’s lost his own child and feels a connection with the spirit. This element makes The Changeling a surprisingly emotional movie, one that cares more about its characters than it does about cheap scares. That’s not to say it isn’t frightening though. There are the traditional haunted house scares but there’s also the interesting psychological angle. Is George C. Scott simply losing his mind? Trying to create a new family for himself out of thin air? The movie plays nicely with this question and allows the scares to build naturally from the characters and the environment.
Availability: DVD.
5.
The Sentinel
Considered a rip off of movies like The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby when it first came out, I believe The Sentinel is scarier than both. It’s about a successful model who moves into the top floor of a Brooklyn brownstone. She likes the place at first but then begins to suffer visions of violence from her own past and of evil, disfigured people haunting the building. Her boyfriend wants to get her help but she suspects that here’s some kind of conspiracy going on and that the old blind priest upstairs who sits at the window all day might be able to help her. It’s a great mystery movie in addition to being a balls to the wall horror flick. The last twenty minutes are absolutely terrifying and contain the scariest depiction of Hell I have ever seen. Also, everybody is in this movie, including Christopher Walken. It’s absurd. Every two seconds, you’ll be going, ‘hey it’s so and so’ right before you cower in terror.
4.
The Dark Half
This little seen Stephen King adaptation is actually one of the better ones. Directed by George Romero and starring Timothy Hutton and Michael Rooker, it focuses on Thad Beamont, an author of literature who makes more money writing trashy crime novels under his pseudonym, George Stark. A fan finds out that Thad and George are the same person so Thad decides to put his alter ego to rest. He even gives George a fake headstone in the local cemetery. Problem is, George doesn’t like being dead and takes on a life of his own, stalking Thad and killing anyone close to him. Hutton is great as both George and Thad and Romero has a lot of fun with this silly material. It’s a clever look at the duality that goes on in the mind of a writer (King wrote the book after his own pseudonym, Richard Bachman, was exposed) and adds in a fairly complex set of supernatural rules that somehow all make sense. Also, love those sparrows.
Availability: Blu Ray, DVD, Amazon Prime, Netflix streaming.
3.
The Return of the Living Dead
This is one of the greatest horror comedies of all time. Yes, even better than Shaun of the Dead. It begins in a medical supply company where a veteran employee is training the young new guy. The young guy asks if the old man has ever seen anything strange. The man smiles and winks and asks the kid if he’s ever seen Night of the Living Dead. He then explains that movie was based on fact, the zombies the result of a failed military experiment, and two of the corpses were accidentally shipped to this facility and are just below them…in the basement. Would the kid like to take a look? Right away, the movie lets you know exactly what tone it’s going for and the result is fucking hilarious. The zombies here are virtually unkillable and the movie’s funniest scene features the three main characters cutting one of them into little pieces, placing the still moving pieces in garbage bags, and trying to convince the local mortician to cremate what they insist are nothing more than ‘rabid weasels’. There’s also a hilarious scene where two characters are bit, an ambulance is called, and the confused paramedics have to explain to the still walking and talking men that they’re suffering from rigor mortis. No movie on this list is more fun. And fun fact: this is where where the idea that zombies are constantly saying ‘brains’ comes from.
Availability: Blu Ray, DVD, available to rent on Amazon Instant.
2.
Creepshow
I love horror anthologies and Creepshow is by far the best one. A love letter from George Romero and Stephen King to the Tales from the Crypt comics of their youth, it is a superb exercise in style, humor, and terror. It’s also one of the best comic book movies ever made. Romero uses panels, bright colors, and even edits that look like pages turning to make you feel as if you’re reading a graphic novel. The tagline on the poster stated, “the most fun you’ll ever have being scared” and that’s not far off. The first story involves the corpse of an old patriarch rising from the grave to make sure he gets his Father’s day cake, the second stars King himself as a hick farmer who discovers a meteorite, the third features one of the most terrifying ways to kill a person ever imagined, the fourth concerns a monster in a crate hidden beneath the stairs at a university, and the final tale should not be watched at all if you have a fear of bugs. All are entertaining, well-acted, funny, and spooky. My personal favorite is The Crate which, in addition to the monster, features a very clever way of disposing of an obnoxious spouse. Another flick to watch with a large group of friends. Creepshow 2 ain’t bad either.
Availability: Blu Ray, DVD, available to rent on Amazon Instant.
1.
Don’t Look Now
This remains the scariest film I have ever seen. Right from the very first second it starts, you do not feel safe and a terrifying sense of dread permeates every frame of the movie. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie play a couple mourning the drowning death of their daughter. They travel to Venice and gradually begin to feel like human beings again. That is, until a blind psychic tells them they are in great danger and insists that Sutherland has ‘the sight’. He doesn’t want to believer her despite the visions he keeps receiving, some of which involve a hooded killer in a red raincoat. The movie works on many levels: it’s a searing study of two people struggling to come to terms with unimaginable loss, a psychological thriller, a ghost story, and a haunting mystery. It’s also about fate and how fruitless it is to try and stop the inevitable. Sutherland and Christie are excellent, the score is creepy and oppressive, and director Nicolas Roeg makes one of the most beautiful cities on earth look like the landscape of a nightmare. And the reveal of the killer…I can’t even talk about it, I’m too scared. Don’t watch this one alone.
Availability: DVD, Amazon Prime, Netflix streaming.
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